PEACEFUL WARRIORS: CODES FOR VIOLENCE AMONG ADULT MALE BAR FIGHTERS

Considerable theoretical and empirical inquiry has focused on the role codes for violence play in generating crime. A large part of this work has examined the attitudes and codes condoning retaliation and violence as well as the prevalence of these among minorities residing in impoverished neighborhoods. Much about the nature of codes remains unknown, however, and this may in part reflect a narrow interest in beliefs about provocation and uses of violence among the inner‐city poor. In this study, we elaborate on a code of violence as part of a system of order and honor as articulated by a network of White, working‐class males in a southern U.S. city who participate in bar fights. The findings suggest that the code these men use prohibits predatory violence, puts exclusive limitations on situations that warrant violence, and constrains the level of violence in a fight. We detail the contours of this code (e.g., purpose of fighting, the rules of honorable fighting, and justifications for violating these rules) and discuss the code as both a cause and a consequence of behavior.     

Pink‐Collar Representation and Budgetary Outcomes in US States

Legislatures worldwide are dominated by wealthy elites, who are often out of touch with the needs and problems of citizens. Research shows that the underrepresentation of the working class matters in terms of policy processes and outcomes. Yet the research on class has largely focused on blue‐collar representatives, who are primarily men. Working‐class women are more likely to hold pink‐collar jobs, or low‐status occupations dominated by women. We argue that pink‐collar legislators are uniquely positioned to legislate over education and social service policy. To test our argument, we combine a new coding of working‐class backgrounds that accounts for pink‐collar representation with state spending data on education and social services from US states over time. Modeling compositional budget data, we find that class and gender intersect to shape policy outcomes via state budget allocations, with women's pink‐collar representation associated with increased spending on both education and social services.     

Partner Violence in Women's Prison: The Social Consequences of Girlfriend Fights

In this article, we use qualitative interviews with female inmates to examine how these women describe the consequences of girlfriend fights in prison. We find that they describe these fights as both social and pervasive. We also find that those who were counseled by staff members describe being empowered by the event. We argue that prison officials must use better methods of identifying and addressing partner violence in prison. We also recommend the use of widespread programs aimed at reducing partner violence.     

Street-Level Bureaucracy, Interprofessional Relations, and Coping Mechanisms: A Study of Criminal Justice Social Workers in the Sentencing Process

This article builds on the work of Michael Lipsky and develops an argument about the significance of interprofessional working for street-level bureaucracy. It presents an ethnographic analysis of criminal justice social workers writing presentence reports for the Scottish courts. Social workers' report writing for judges brought into relief issues of relative professional status. Social workers were uncertain of their place within the legal domain and concerned about their credibility as criminal justice professionals. Reports were written, in part at least, as a way of seeking esteem and credibility in the eyes of judges—a motivation that undermined the policy objectives of social enquiry in sentencing. Applying the conceptual tools of Bourdieu to our findings, we argue that street-level bureaucrats who have to work across bureaucratic "fields" may find, or fear, that the cultural and symbolic "capital" they retained within their own field is undervalued in the symbolic economy of new fields, putting them in a position of relative inferiority. This issue of relative professional status, and how officials respond to it, is significant for our understanding of street-level bureaucracy.     

The social organization of masculine violence in nighttime leisure scenes

Recent scholarship on masculinity and crime suggests that men who have difficulty asserting their masculine status due to social marginalization (across age, class, and racial lines) have a higher likelihood of engaging in violent behavior to offset their lack of social power in other areas. While marginalization can abet the development of masculine violence, in this article I suggest more attention to the mitigating effects of structural changes and cultural contexts is necessary for a richer understanding of how masculine violence plays out. Drawing on multi-method ethnographic data from a case of one major US city with a thriving nighttime cultural economy, I aim to show how the structural characteristics of nighttime leisure scenes create situations for the enactment of particular forms of violence that reflect a number of subterranean convergences with the masculinization of the cultural economy.     

Battering Men and Their Male Therapists: The Different and the Similar

This paper describes the process of change in attitudes of male social workers’ towards themselves and towards their clients who are male perpetrators of partner violence (PV). The process reveals a reconstruction of the therapist’s beliefs concerning key elements in their work related being, such as masculinity, aggression, perception of their clients and their own male identities. The sample includes 15 male social workers that worked with battering men in social services. Data collection was performed through semi-structured interviews. The therapists’ process of questioning the popular and accepted demonization of violent men clarifies what differentiates them from their clients, but also opens an authentic pathway to examining similarities they share as men, without the need to be politically correct or to conform. The implications for practitioners working in batterers’ intervention programs are addressed.     

Self-Defense, Punishing Unjust Combatants and Justice in War

Some contemporary Just War theorists, like Jeff McMahan, have recently built upon an individual right of self-defense to articulate moral rules of war that are at odds with commonly accepted views. For instance, they argue that in principle combatants who fight on the unjust side ought to be liable to punishment on that basis alone. Also, they reject the conclusion that combatants fighting on both sides are morally equal. In this paper, I argue that these theorists overextend their self-defense analysis when it comes to the punishment of unjust combatants, and I show how in an important sense just and unjust combatants are morally equal. I contend that the individualistic and quid pro quo perspective of the self-defense analysis fails to consider properly how the international community, morally speaking, ought to treat combatants, and I set forth four elements of justice applicable to war, which, together, support the conclusion that in principle the international community should not take on the activity of punishing combatants solely for fighting on the unjust side.     

Social capital in Scottish and Danish neighbourhoods: paradoxes of a police–community nexus at the front line

Community-oriented social capital strategies and punitive-oriented policing approaches conflict. Establishing local networking initiatives with community-oriented policing at the centre lends itself to an assets-based policing approach, based on honouring, mobilizing and extending the assets of community members. Scholars argue about the need for comparative research on convergences and divergencies across subcultures on the streets and communities. Based on qualitative data gathered from working class communities in Scotland and Denmark in 2014, the article draws inspiration from community-generated theory of social capital to explore the micro-sociology of experiences and understandings about community–police integration policy initiatives. We use this perspective to argue that the building of positive inter-generational and police–community relationships is the result of social exchanges and officers’ use of what we call ‘constructive investment strategies’. Ironically, our insights from Scotland to Denmark also suggest what appear as positive achievements of community policing may instead intensify residents’ negative perceptions of police officers and organizations. In this way, the article illuminates the tangled and conflicted nature of these embedded symbolic interactions, social capital formations and the latter’s form as a potential positional and ‘tribal’ commodity.     

MASCULINITY AND DELINQUENCY

A strong positive association between masculinity and delinquency is on important assumption in theories which explain why (1) males are more delinquent than females and (2) females are becoming increasingly delin-quent. Self-report measures obtained from 1002 junior and senior high school students from a large Southeastern city constitute the data for an examination of the first of these relationships. Factor analytic procedures were used to identify the components of masculinity: leadership, aggressive-ness, competitiveness, ambitiousness, and successfulness. Separate models of masculinity, opportunity, attachment to conventional others, and belief in the moral validity of low are constructed for status, property, and aggressive offenses. For females, masculinity has no direct effects on any type of delinquency. For males, masculinity is directly related only to status offenses. The results are inconsistent with analyses of females' delinquency that emphasize their adoption of masculine characteristics.     

Arresting Masculinity: Anger,Hybridity and the Reproduction of Phallic Space

This paper examines how the signifier of ‘toxic masculinity’ operates in the contemporary psycho-social landscape of embodied power relations. It is argued that toxic masculinity is a symbolic response to the deep sense of anger people experience owing to the persistent disturbance of reason that characterizes the radically incongruous Thirdspace in which we live. To those who feel disoriented and lost, toxic masculinity is both an imagined cause and a projected solution to the endemic sense of dislocation. As an index of repressive power, self-serving discipline and ruthless ambition, toxic masculinity is held fully responsible by angry ‘outsiders’ for the ongoing disturbance of reason, whilst the very attribution of the cause of this disturbance to a gendered position of traditional embodied authority simultaneously serves the purpose of changing the hybridity of Thirdspace into more conventional figurations of social imbalance. This explanatory model, which draws both on Edward W. Soja’s reflections on the changing spatialities of the human lifeworld and Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the (re-)production of (phallic) space, is further employed to address the questions as to why patriarchy persists and whether alternative constellations of governance are feasible.

     

Religion,masculinity and fertility decline: A comparative analysis of Protestant and Catholic culture (Switzerland 1890–1930)

This paper provides the sketch of a new mechanism explaining the delay of Catholic fertility, namely the changing norms of masculinity and fatherhood, through a comparative study of the first fertility transition in Switzerland (1880–1930).Comparative analysis of religious discourse attests to striking differences in norms of respectable masculinity. In the Protestant canton, men were especially targeted and strongly incited to change their sexual behaviour and limit their offspring in order to comply with a new model of the good husband and father. The religious teachings had an impact due to the social position of the persons enouncing the norms, to the efficient diffusion reaching the majority of men, and to the effective sanctioning, as the example of pastoral enquiries demonstrates. In the Catholic canton by contrast, men were not specifically addressed; the religious discourse supported the husband's rights to frequent sexual intercourse and encouraged him to trust Providence to bring up many children, thus sustaining high levels of fertility. The political repression of public discourse on sexuality defeated every attempt of contesting the husband's marital rights and the Catholic doctrine of procreation. Sexual taboos were particularly severe for women and their total ignorance of sexual matters weakened their bargaining power in fertility decisions.In the last part of the paper, using quantitative methods, we tried to demonstrate that these norms and mechanisms did indeed influence men's behaviour in the Protestant sample. For this purpose, we measured comparatively the results of some indicators introduced to capture the impact of the norms of respectable masculinity, regarding men's responsibility in contraception and men's ability to maintain dependent children. We hope thus to strengthen the position of a growing number of scholars who state that historical demographers cannot avoid incorporating gender into their explanations of historical trends of fertility and who foster the bridging of qualitative and quantitative methods.     

Religion,masculinity and fertility decline

This paper provides the sketch of a new mechanism explaining the delay of Catholic fertility, namely the changing norms of masculinity and fatherhood, through a comparative study of the first fertility transition in Switzerland (1880–1930).

Comparative analysis of religious discourse attests to striking differences in norms of respectable masculinity. In the Protestant canton, men were especially targeted and strongly incited to change their sexual behaviour and limit their offspring in order to comply with a new model of the good husband and father. The religious teachings had an impact due to the social position of the persons enouncing the norms, to the efficient diffusion reaching the majority of men, and to the effective sanctioning, as the example of pastoral enquiries demonstrates. In the Catholic canton by contrast, men were not specifically addressed; the religious discourse supported the husband's rights to frequent sexual intercourse and encouraged him to trust Providence to bring up many children, thus sustaining high levels of fertility. The political repression of public discourse on sexuality defeated every attempt of contesting the husband's marital rights and the Catholic doctrine of procreation. Sexual taboos were particularly severe for women and their total ignorance of sexual matters weakened their bargaining power in fertility decisions.

In the last part of the paper, using quantitative methods, we tried to demonstrate that these norms and mechanisms did indeed influence men's behaviour in the Protestant sample. For this purpose, we measured comparatively the results of some indicators introduced to capture the impact of the norms of respectable masculinity, regarding men's responsibility in contraception and men's ability to maintain dependent children. We hope thus to strengthen the position of a growing number of scholars who state that historical demographers cannot avoid incorporating gender into their explanations of historical trends of fertility and who foster the bridging of qualitative and quantitative methods.     

FIGHTING OVER TRIVIAL THINGS: EXPLAINING THE ISSUE OF CONTENTION IN VIOLENT ALTERCATIONS*

Violent altercations can lead to serious injury and death, and yet some interpersonal disputes that prompt physical violence originate over what are seemingly trivial issues. This study evaluates the theoretical premise that violence stemming from what typically are defined as trivial altercations can be explained by what is at stake in these conflicts; trivial altercations, or fights about “nothing,” actually represent symbolic contests of dominance and deference. These status contests are necessary primarily when the social relationship between opponents is symmetrical—when a dominance hierarchy is not clearly established. Data from interviews with incarcerated women in Ontario, Canada, show that relationship symmetry strongly predicts the issue of contention in their physically violent altercations. These findings suggest that, when violence erupts over trivial issues, both parties to the altercation essentially are locked in a battle for social rank.     

Hands-on Killing of Intimate Partners as a Function of Sex and Relationship Status/State

Guided by evolutionary psychology and a situational perspective on violence, we generated three hypotheses to investigate whether the percentage of intimate partner homicides by beating, a hands-on homicide method, varies with the victim-offender relationship. We tested these hypotheses with a national database that includes incident-level information on over 50,000 intimate partner homicides. Results indicate that: (1) men are more likely than women to kill a partner by beating, and (2) men are more likely to kill their partners by beating when the relationship is dating or non-marital cohabiting (versus legal marriage). We argue that the lack of commitment in these non-marital relationships may produce greater jealousy in men, driving the perpetrator to kill his victim in a more violent manner (i.e., beating), relative to men who kill their wives.     

儿童作为权利主体在人权理论上的证成与限度

西方学者对于儿童是否可以拥有权利的理性反思最初是在人权维度上展开的,他们依据人权的论证逻辑来论证儿童是人,因为他们是人,他们就应该享有人之为人的权利,儿童权利乃是一种不可剥夺的道德权利.无可否认,儿童作为权利主体在人权理论上的证成对于发掘儿童的内在价值、认真对待儿童权利、丰富人权理论具有十分重要的意义.但是由于这种论证过于简单和粗糙,其存在着对于人权理论中“人”的含义的重大误解,缺失对儿童这一群体特殊性的关注及其对儿童权利认识的有限性和不充分性等问题.     

Negotiating a Victim Identity: Young Men as Victims of Violence

This article is based on an interview study of how 10 young male crime victims talk about violent events and actors involved. It focuses on how the young men present their identities as ‘young men’ who have been victims of violent crimes. In their narrations the men struggle with a cultural understanding that ‘masculinity’ is associated with strength and power, while ‘victim’ is associated with weakness and impotence. During the interviews the young men actualize several balancing acts in their presentation of themselves as men and victims in a delicate manner by use of specific word choice, manner of speaking, laughter, etc. The young men are negotiating a victim identity; they portray themselves by careful positioning as both victims and strong, active young men. By this discursive balancing of identities the young men present themselves as manly at the same time as they present themselves as victims. In collaboration with the interviewer the participants negotiate how they want to be known: as ‘victim-worthy’ young men, with associations to a ‘hegemonic manliness’.     

SNAKES AND LADDERS: UPPER‐MIDDLE CLASS MALE OFFENDERS TALK ABOUT ECONOMIC CRIME*

This paper explores the ways in which male offenders in professional‐status occupations prior to conviction construct and justify money‐related crime. We report a detailed analysis, based in grounded theory and critical social‐psychological discourse analysis, of a loosely‐structured group interview with four offenders. The men constructed justifications for their offenses in terms of “breadwinning” for their immediate family and economic responsibility toward their extended “family” of employees and creditors. They represented their post‐conviction decline in social status as being “dragged down” by envious “boys” in the state apparatus. They positioned themselves on moral high ground, despite having been inappropriately sent to the working class world of prison (“Dante's Inferno”). We contrast these accounts with those of less privileged male offenders.     

Consequences Matter More: In Defense of Instrumentalism on Private Versus Public Prisons

Alon Harel wants to show that punishment is a kind of symbolic expression that, as a matter of metaphysical necessity, can only be performed by governmental agents. Contrary to Harel, I argue private agents can in fact realize those features he argues only public agents can realize. I also argue that, even if he were right that only public guards and wardens can punish, it’s unclear why we would have an all-things-considered rather than merely a pro tanto/prima facie duty to punish. An instrumentalist can grant Harel that only state employees can punish, but still decide, on instrumental grounds, to reject public punishment in favor of private “schpunishment.”     

Indonesian Men's Contrasting Perceptions of How to Deal with Local Violence

This paper reports on data from a 2009–2010 project on masculinity and violence, part of which was conducted in Indonesia. The data here come from semi-structured interviews with 86 men in five cities, with minor reference to survey findings. Using a Foucauldian interpretive framework, we focus primarily on how these Indonesian men view police intervention in comparison to resolving the problem of violence within their community through mediation. The issue here is that while community mediation approaches are regarded positively, at present, it only seems to be religious leaders who are trusted to resolve conflicts effectively through this approach. Suspicion of mediation interventions and other measures that are tied to the authority of the state means that the promise of service-oriented policing reforms may not be effectively implemented.     

The true servant: Self-definition of male domestics in an Italian city (Bologna, 17th–19th centuries)

Some historians have classed as servants only people living with their masters; some have excluded farm servants; some have included married domestics living with their own families. The archive of the Bolognese Confraternity of San Vitale, also known as Università dei Servitori, is analyzed in this article to show how one group of servants defined a “true” servant. Their solution was to exclude from their association people who performed what they deemed “filthy” tasks. They also excluded women, giving us a particular insight in the history of gender and masculinity. In their view, the “true” servants were bourgeois (and locally born) men rather than lower class (migrant) women who are often identified as the stereotypical servants. Moreover, most members of the association were married, they had their own families in Bologna and did not always live with their masters. This makes possible the analysis of married male servants living with their own families, a category of servant that has received less attention than life-cycle servants.